Faith: its powers and action; the order of its examples

It is not a definition of this principle, that the epistle gives
us at the commencement of Hebrews 11, but a declaration of its
powers and action. Faith realises (gives substance to) that which we
hope for, and is a demonstration to the soul of that which we do not
see.

There is much more order than is generally thought in the series
given here of examples of the action of faith, although this order
is not the principal object. I will point out its leading features.

Faith with regard to creation by the word of God

First with regard to creation. Lost in reasonings, and not
knowing God, the human mind sought out endless solutions of
existence. Those who have read the cosmogonies of the ancients know
how many different systems, each more absurd than the other, have
been invented for that which the introduction of God, by faith,
renders perfectly simple. Modern science, with a less active and
more practical mind, stops at second causes; and it is but little
occupied with God. Geology has taken the place of the cosmogony of
the Hindoos, Egyptians, Orientals and philosophers. To the believer
the thought is clear and simple; his mind is assured and intelligent
by faith. God, by His word, called all things into existence. The
universe is not a producing cause; it is itself a creature acting by
a law imposed upon it. It is One having authority who has spoken;
His word has divine efficacy. He speaks, and the thing is. We feel
that this is worthy of God; for, when once God is brought in, all is
simple. Shut Him out, and man is lost in the efforts of his own
imagination, which can neither create nor arrive at the knowledge of
a Creator, because it only works with the power of a
creature. Before, therefore, the details of the present form of
creation are entered upon, the word simply says, "In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth." Whatever may have taken
place between that and chaos forms no part of revelation. It is
distinct from the special action of the deluge, which is made known
to us. The beginning of Genesis does not give a history of the
details of creation itself, nor the history of the universe. It
gives the fact that in the beginning God created; and afterwards,
the things that regard man on the earth. The angels even are not
there. Of the stars it is only said, "He made the stars also"; when,
we are not told.

By faith then we believe that the worlds were created by the
word of God.

Sin and the sacrifice; Abel drawing near by faith; testimony
made to his offering

But sin has come in, and righteousness has to be found for
fallen man, in order that he may stand before God. God has given a
Lamb for the sacrifice. But here we have set before us, not the gift
on God's part, but the soul drawing near to Him by faith.

By faith then Abel offers to God a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain -- a sacrifice which (founded on the revelation already made by
God) was offered in the intelligence which a conscience taught of
God possessed, with regard to the position in which he who offered
was standing. Death and judgment had come in by sin, to man
insupportable, although he must undergo them. He must go therefore
to God, confessing this; but he must go with a substitute which
grace has given. He must go with blood, the witness at the same time
both of the judgment and of the perfect grace of God. Doing this, he
was in the truth, and this truth was righteousness and grace. He
approaches God and puts the sacrifice between himself and God. He
receives the testimony that he is righteous -- righteous according
to the righteous judgment of God. For the sacrifice was in
connection with the righteousness that had condemned man, and owned
too the perfect value of that which was done in it. The testimony is
to his offering; but Abel is righteous before God. Nothing can be
more clear, more precious on this point. It is not only the
sacrifice which is accepted, but Abel who comes with the
sacrifice. He receives from God this testimony, that he is
righteous. Sweet and blessed consolation! But the testimony is made
to his gifts, so that he possessed all the certainty of acceptance
according to the value of the sacrifice offered. In going to God by
the sacrifice of Jesus, not only am I righteous (I receive the
testimony that I am righteous), but this testimony is made to my
offering; and therefore my righteousness has the value and the
perfection of the offering; that is, of Christ offering Himself to
God. The fact that we receive testimony on God's part that we are
righteous, and at the same time that the testimony is made to the
gift which we offer (not to the condition in which we are), is of
infinite value to us. We are now before God according to the
perfection of Christ's work. We walk with God thus.

The power and rights of death destroyed shown by Enoch's
exemption from the common lot of humanity

By faith, death having been the means of my acceptance before
God, all that belongs to the old man is abolished for faith; the
power and the rights of death are entirely destroyed -- Christ has
undergone them. Thus, if it please God, we go to heaven without even
passing through death (compare 2 Cor: 1-4). God did this for Enoch,
for Elijah, as a testimony. Not only are sins put away, and
righteousness established by the work of Christ, but the rights and
power of him who has the power of death are entirely destroyed.
Death may happen to us -- we are by nature liable to it; but we
possess a life which is outside its jurisdiction. Death, if it come,
is but gain to us; and although nothing but the power of God Himself
can raise or transform the body, this power has been manifested in
Jesus, and has already wrought in us by quickening us (compare
Eph. 1: 19); and it works in us now in the power of deliverance from
sin, from the law, and from the flesh. Death, as a power of the
enemy, is conquered; it is become a "gain" to faith, instead of
being a judgment on nature. Life, the power of God in life, works
in holiness and in obedience here below, and declares itself in the
resurrection, or in the transformation of the body. It is a witness
of power with regard to Christ in Romans 1: 4.

The testimony that Enoch received of pleasing God and that
which he bore to the world's judgment; his translation a figure of
the position of the assembly

But there is another very sweet consideration to be noticed
here. Enoch received testimony that he pleased God, before he was
translated. This is very important and very precious. If we walk
with God, we have the testimony that we please Him; we have the
sweetness of communion with God, the testimony of His Spirit, His
intercourse with us in the sense of His presence, the consciousness
of walking according to His word, which we know to be approved by
Him -- in a word, a life which, spent with Him and before Him by
faith, is spent in the light of His countenance, and in the
enjoyment of the communications of His grace and of a sure
testimony, coming from Himself, that we are pleasing to Him. A child
who walks with a kind father and converses with him, his conscience
reproaching him with nothing -- does he not enjoy the sense of his
parent's favour?

In figure Enoch here represents the position of the saints who
compose the assembly. He is taken up to heaven by virtue of a
complete victory over death. By the exercise of sovereign grace he
is outside the government and the ordinary deliverance of God. He
bears testimony by the Spirit to the judgment of the world, but he
does not go through it (Jude 14, 15). A walk like that of Enoch has
God for its object; His existence is realised -- the great business
of life, which in the world is spent as if man did everything -- and
the fact that He is interested in the walk of men, that He takes
account of it, in order to reward those who diligently seek
Him.

Accepting God's testimony as to the coming judgment and his
means of escape, Noah preserved for a future world

Noah is found in the scene of the government of this world. He
does not warn others of the coming judgments as one who is outside
them, although he is a preacher of righteousness. He is warned
himself and for himself: he is in the circumstances to which the
warning relates. It is the spirit of prophecy. He is moved by fear,
and he builds an ark to the saving of his house. He thus condemned
the world. Enoch had not to build an ark in order to pass safely
through the flood. He was not in it: God translated him --
exceptionally. Noah is preserved (heir of the righteousness which is
by faith) for a future world. There is a general principle which
accepts the testimony of God respecting the judgment that will fall
upon men, and the means provided by God for escaping it: this
belongs to every believer.

The world condemned by Noah's ark; passing through judgment
Noah represents the Jewish remnant

But there is something more precise. Abel has the testimony that
he is righteous; Enoch walks with God, pleases God, and is exempted
from the common lot of humanity, proclaiming as from above the fate
that awaits men, and the coming of Him who will execute the
judgment. He goes forward to the accomplishment of the counsels of
God. But neither Abel nor Enoch, thus viewed, condemned the world as
that in the midst of which they were journeying, receiving
themselves the warning addressed to those who were dwellers
therein. This was Noah's case; the prophet, although delivered, is
in the midst of the judged people. The assembly is outside
them. Noah's ark condemned the world; the testimony of God was
enough for faith, and he inherits a world that had been destroyed,
and (what belongs to all believers) righteousness by faith, on which
the new world too is founded. This is the case of the Jewish remnant
in the last days. They pass through the judgments, out of which we,
as not belonging to the world, have been taken. Warned themselves of
God's way of government in the earth, they will be witnesses to the
world of the coming judgments, and will be heirs of the
righteousness which is by faith, and witnesses to it in a new world,
wherein righteousness will be accomplished in judgment by Him who is
come, and whose throne will uphold the world in which Noah himself
failed. The words, "heir of the righteousness which is by faith,"
point out, I think, that this faith which had governed a few was
summed up in his person, and that the whole unbelieving world was
condemned. The witness of this faith before judgment, Noah passes
through it: and when the world is renewed, he is a public witness to
the blessing of God that rests on faith, although outwardly all is
changed. Thus Enoch represents the saints of the present time; Noah,
the Jewish remnant.*

{*Indeed all that are spared for the world to come. Their state
is expressed in the end of Revelation 7, as that of the Jews in the
first verses of Revelation 14.}

Examples of the divine life in detail; the patience of hope
which trusts God and waits taking the place of strangership here
because something better is desired; its effect

The Spirit, after establishing the great fundamental principles
of faith in action, goes on (v. 8) to produce examples of the divine
life in detail, always in connection with Jewish knowledge, with
that which the heart of a Hebrew could not fail to own; and, at the
same time, in connection with the object of the epistle and with the
wants of Christians among the Hebrews.

In the previous case we have seen a faith which, after owning a
Creator-God, recognises the great principles of the relations of man
with God, and that onwards to the end upon earth.

In that which follows, we have first the patience of faith when
it does not possess, but trusts God and waits, assured of
fulfilment. This is from verse 8 to 22. We may subdivide it thus: --
first, the faith which takes the place of strangership on earth, and
maintains it, because something better is desired; and which, in
spite of weakness, finds the strength that is requisite in order to
the fulfilment of the promises. This is from verses 8 to 16. Its
effect is entrance into the joy of a heavenly hope. Strangers in the
land of promise, and not enjoying the fulfilment of promises here
below, they wait for more excellent things -- things which God
prepares on high for those who love Him. For such He has prepared a
city. In unison with God in His own thoughts, their desires (through
grace) answering to the things in which He takes delight, they are
the objects of His peculiar regard. He is not ashamed to be called
their God. Abraham not only followed God into a land that He showed
him, but, a stranger there, and not possessing the land of promise,
he is, by the mighty grace of God, exalted to the sphere of His
thoughts; and, enjoying communion with God and the communications of
His grace, he rests upon God for the time present, accepts his
position of strangership on earth, and, as the portion of his faith,
waits for the heavenly city of which God is the builder and the
founder. There was not, so to speak, an open revelation of what was
the subject of this hope, as was the case with that by which Abraham
was called of God; but walking closely enough with God to know that
which was enjoyed in His presence, and being conscious that he had
not received the fulfilment of the promise, he lays hold of the
better things, and waits for them, although only seeing them afar
off, and remains a stranger upon earth, unmindful of the country
whence he came out.

The special application of these first principles of faith to
the case of the Hebrew Christians is evident. They are the normal
life of faith for all.

Entire confidence in the fulfilment of the promises in spite of
weakness

The second character of faith presented in this part is entire
confidence in the fulfilment of the promises -- a confidence
maintained in spite of all that might tend to destroy it. This is
from verse 17 to 22.

We next find, the second great division, that faith makes its
way through all the difficulties that oppose its progress (v.
23-27). And from verse 28 to 31 faith displays itself in a trust
that reposes on God with regard to the use of the means which He
sets before us, and of which nature cannot avail itself. Finally,
there is the energy in general, of which faith is the source, and
the sufferings that characterise the walk of faith.*

The general character of the examples of faith

This general character belongs to all the examples mentioned,
namely, that they who have exercised faith have not received the
fulfilment of the promise; the application of which to the state of
the Hebrew Christians is evident. Further, these illustrious heroes
of faith, however honoured they might be among the Jews, did not
enjoy the privileges that Christians possessed. God in His counsels
had reserved something better for us.

{*In general we may say that verses 8-22 are faith resting
assured on the promise, the patience of faith: verse 23 to the end,
faith resting on God for the activities and difficulties faith leads
to, the energy of faith.}

Abraham's faith; his renunciation a type of Christ in death and resurrection

Let us notice some details. Abraham's faith shows itself by a
thorough trust in God. Called to leave his own people, breaking the
ties of nature, he obeys. He knows not whither he is going: enough
for him that God would show him the place. God, having brought him
thither, gives him nothing. He dwells there content, in perfect
reliance on God. He was a gainer by it. He waited for a city that
had foundations. He openly confesses that he is a stranger and a
pilgrim on earth (Gen. 23: 4). Thus, in spirit, he draws nearer to
God. Although he possesses nothing, his affections are engaged. He
desires a better country, and attaches himself to God more
immediately and entirely. He has no desire to return into his own
country; he seeks a country. Such is the Christian. In offering up
Isaac there was that absolute confidence in God which, at His
command, can renounce even God's own promises as possessed after the
flesh, sure that God would restore them through the exercise of His
power, overcoming death and every obstacle.

It is thus that Christ renounced His rights as Messiah, and went
even into death, committing Himself to the will of God and trusting
in Him; and received everything in resurrection. And this the
Hebrew Christians had to do, with respect to the Messiah and the
promises made to Israel. But, if there is simplicity of faith, for
us the Jordan is dry, nor could we indeed have passed it if the Lord
had not passed on before.

Observe here that, when trusting in God and giving up all for
Him, we always gain, and we learn something more of the ways of His
power: for in renouncing according to His will anything already
received, we ought to expect from the power of God that He will
bestow something else. Abraham renounces the promise after the
flesh. He sees the city which has foundations; he can desire a
heavenly country. He gives up Isaac, in whom were the promises: he
learns resurrection, for God is infallibly faithful. The promises
were in Isaac: therefore God must restore him to Abraham, and by
resurrection, if he offered him in sacrifice.

Expressions of faith in the future fulfilment of God's promise;
Israel's future return to their own land shown in Isaac, Jacob and
Joseph

In Isaac faith distinguishes between the portion of God's people
according to His election, and that of man having birthrights
according to nature. This is the knowledge of the ways of God in
blessing, and in judgment.

By faith Jacob, a stranger and feeble, having nothing but the
staff with which he had crossed the Jordan, worships God, and
announces the double portion of the heir of Israel, of the one whom
his brethren rejected -- a type of the Lord, the heir of all
things. This lays the ground of worship.

By faith Joseph, a stranger, the representative here of Israel
far from his own country, reckons on the fulfilment of the earthly
promises.*

{*Observe that in these cases we find the rights of Christ in
resurrection; the judgment of nature, and the blessing of faith,
through grace; the inheritance of all things heavenly and earthly by
Christ; and Israel's future return to their own land.}

Faith which surmounts every difficulty shown in Moses

These are the expressions of faith in the faithfulness of God,
in the future fulfilment of His promise. In that which follows we
have the faith which surmounts every difficulty that arises in the
path of the man of God, in the way that God marks out for him as he
journeys on towards the enjoyment of the promises.

The faith of the parents of Moses makes them disregard the
king's cruel command, and they conceal their infant; whom God, in
answer to their faith, preserved by extraordinary means when there
was no other way to save it. Faith does not reason; it acts from its
own point of view, and leaves the result to God.

But the means which God used for the preservation of Moses
placed him within a little of the highest position in the
kingdom. He there came to be possessed of all the acquirements which
that period could bestow on a man distinguished alike by his energy
and his character. But faith does its work, and inspires divine
affections which do not look to surrounding circumstances for a
guide of action, even when those circumstances may have owned their
origin to the most remarkable providences.

Faith and not providence as a rule and motive

Faith has its own objects, supplied by God Himself, and governs
the heart with a view to those objects. It gives us a place and
relationships which rule the whole life, and leave no room for other
motives and other spheres of affection which would divide the heart;
for the motives and affections which govern faith are given by God,
and given by Him in order to form and govern the heart.

Verses 24-26 develop this point. It is a very important
principle; for we often hear Providence alleged as a reason for not
walking by faith. Never was there a more remarkable Providence than
that which placed Moses in the court of Pharaoh; and it gained its
object. It would not have done so if Moses had not abandoned the
position into which that Providence had brought him. But it was
faith (that is to say, the divine affections which God had created
in his heart), and not Providence as a rule and motive, which
produced the effect for which Providence had preserved and prepared
him. Providence (thanks be to God!) governs circumstances; faith
governs the heart and the conduct.

God's promised reward sustaining and encouraging the heart, but
not the motive power

The reward which God has promised comes in here as an avowed
object in the sphere of faith. It is not the motive power; but it
sustains and encourages the heart that is acting by faith, in view
of the object which God presents to our affections. It thus takes
the heart away from the present, from the influence of the things
that surround us (whether they are things that attract or that tend
to intimidate us), and elevates the heart and character of him who
walks by faith, and confirms him in a path of devotedness which will
lead him to the end at which he aims.

A motive outside that which is present to us is the secret of
stability and of true greatness. We may have an object with regard
to which we act; but we need a motive outside that object -- a
divine motive -- to enable us to act in a godly way respecting
it.

God's intervention realised; the provided means of safety; the
efficacy of the blood trusted; acknowledgement of guilt

Faith realises also (v. 27) the intervention of God without
seeing Him; and thus delivers from all fear of the power of man --
the enemy of His people. But the thought of God's intervention
brings the heart into a greater difficulty than even the fear of
man. If His people are to be delivered, God must intervene, and that
in judgment. But they, as well as their enemies, are sinners; and
the consciousness of sin and of deserving judgment necessarily
destroys confidence in Him who is the Judge. Dare they see Him come
to manifest His power in judgment (for this it is, in fact, which
must take place for the deliverance of His people)? Is God for us --
the heart asks -- this God who is coming in judgment? But God has
provided the means of securing safety in the presence of judgment
(v. 28); a means apparently contemptible and useless, yet which in
reality is the only one that, by glorifying Him with regard to the
evil of which we are guilty, has power to afford shelter from the
judgment which He executes.

Faith recognised the testimony of God by trusting to the
efficacy of the blood sprinkled on the door, and could, in all
security, let God come in judgment -- God who, seeing the blood,
would pass over His believing people. By faith Moses kept the
passover. Observe here that, by the act of putting the blood on the
door, the people acknowledged that they were as much the objects of
the just judgment of God as the Egyptians. God had given them that
which preserved them from it; but it was because they were guilty
and deserved it. No one can stand before God.

God's judgment and deliverance; its earthly antitype

Verse 29. But the power of God is manifested, and manifested in
judgment. Nature, the enemies of God's people, think to pass through
this judgment dry-shod, like those who are sheltered by redeeming
power from the righteous vengeance of God. But the judgment swallows
them up in the very same place in which the people find deliverance
-- a principle of marvellous import. There, where the judgment of
God is, even there is the deliverance. Believers have truly
experienced this in Christ. The cross is death and judgment, the two
terrible consequences of sin, the lot of sinful man. To us they are
the deliverance provided of God. By and in them we are delivered,
and (in Christ) we pass through and are out of their reach. Christ
died and is risen; and faith brings us, by means of that which
should have been our eternal ruin, into a place where death and
judgment are left behind, and where our enemies can no longer reach
us. We go through without their touching us. Death and judgment
shield us from the enemy. They are our security. But we enter into a
new sphere, we live by the effect not only of Christ's death, but of
His resurrection.

Those who, in the mere power of nature, think to pass through
(they who speak of death and judgment and Christ, taking the
christian position, and thinking to pass through, although the power
of God in redemption is not with them) are swallowed up.

With respect to the Jews, this event will have an earthly
antitype; for in fact the day of God's judgment on earth will be the
deliverance of Israel, who will have been brought to
repentance.

The Red Sea deliverance and what it spoke of: God for the
people

This deliverance at the Red Sea goes beyond the protection of
the blood in Egypt. There God coming in the expression of His
holiness, executing judgment upon evil, what they needed was to be
sheltered from that judgment -- to be protected from the righteous
judgment of God Himself. And, by the blood, God, thus coming to
execute judgment, was shut out, and the people were placed in safety
before the Judge. This judgment had the character of the eternal
judgment. And God had the character of a Judge.

At the Red Sea it was not merely deliverance from judgment
hanging over them; God was for the people, active in love and in
power for them.* The deliverance was an actual deliverance: they
came out of that condition in which they had been enslaved, God's
own power bringing them unhurt through that which otherwise must
have been their destruction. Thus, in our case, it is Christ's
death and resurrection, in which we participate, the redemption
which He therein accomplished,** which introduces us into an
entirely new condition altogether outside that of nature. We are no
longer in the flesh.

{*Stand still, says Moses, and see the salvation of Jehovah.}

{**Crossing the Jordan represents the believer being set at
liberty, and intelligently entering by faith into the heavenlies; it
is conscious death and resurrection with Christ. The Red Sea is the
power of redemption by Christ.}

In principle the earthly deliverance of the Jewish nation (the
Jewish remnant) will be the same. Founded on the power of the risen
Christ, and on the propitiation wrought out by His death, that
deliverance will be accomplished by God, who will intervene on
behalf of those that turn to Him by faith: at the same time that His
adversaries (who are those also of His people) shall be destroyed by
the very judgment which is the safeguard of the people whom they
have oppressed.

Difficulties disappearing before God; the walls of Jericho

Verse 30. Yet all difficulties were not overcome because
redemption was accomplished, deliverance effected. But the God of
deliverance was with them; difficulties disappear before Him. That
which is a difficulty to man is none to Him. Faith trusts in Him,
and uses means which only serve to express that trust. The walls of
Jericho fall down at the sound of trumpets made of rams' horns,
after Israel had compassed the city seven days, sounding these
trumpets seven times.

Rahab's escape from judgment

Rahab, in presence of all the as yet unimpaired strength of the
enemies of God and His people, identifies he rself with the latter
before they had gained one victory, because she felt that God was
with them. A stranger to them (as to the flesh), she by faith
escaped the judgment which God executed upon her people.

Faith under various characters and energy of patience,
sustaining under all kinds of sufferings

Verse 32. Details are now no longer entered into. Israel
(although individuals had still to act by faith), being established
in the land of promise, furnished less occasion to develop examples
of the principles on which faith acted. The Spirit speaks in a
general way of these examples in which faith reappeared under
various characters and energy of patience, and sustained souls under
all kinds of suffering. Their glory was with God, the world was not
worthy of them. Nevertheless they had received nothing of the
fulfilment of the promises; they had to live by faith, as well as
the Hebrews, to whom the epistle was addressed. The latter, however,
had privileges which were in no wise possessed by believers of
former days. Neither the one nor the other was brought to
perfection, that is, to the heavenly glory, unto which God has
called us, and in which they are to participate. Abraham and others
waited for this glory; they never possessed it: God would not give
it them without us. But He has not called us by the same revelations
only as those which He made to them. For the days of the rejected
Messiah He had reserved some better thing. Heavenly things have
become things of the present time, things fully revealed and
actually possessed in spirit, by the union of the saints with
Christ, and present access into the holiest through the blood of
Christ.

The Christian's present portion; the better thing reserved

We have not to do with a promise and a distinct view of a place
approached from without, entrance to which was not yet granted, so
that relationship with God would not be founded on entrance within
the veil -- entrance into His own presence. We now go in with
boldness. We belong to heaven; our citizenship is there; we are at
home there. Heavenly glory is our present portion, Christ having
gone in as our Forerunner. We have in heaven a Christ who is man
glorified. This Abraham had not. He walked on earth with a heavenly
mind, waiting for a city, feeling that nothing else would satisfy
the desires which God had awakened in his heart; but he could not be
connected with heaven by means of a Christ actually sitting there in
glory. This is our present portion. We can even say that we are
united to Him there. The Christian's position is quite different
from that of Abraham. God had reserved some better thing for
us.

The Spirit does not here develop the whole extent of this
"better thing," because the assembly is not His subject. He presents
the general thought to the Hebrews to encourage them, that believers
of the present day have special privileges, which they enjoy by
faith, but which did not belong even to the faith of believers in
former days.

We shall be perfected, that is to say, glorified together in
resurrection; but there is a special portion which belongs to the
saints now, and which did not belong to the patriarchs. The fact
that Christ, as man, is in heaven after having accomplished
redemption, and that the Holy Ghost, by whom we are united to
Christ, is on earth, made this superiority granted to Christians
easily understood. Accordingly even the least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than the greatest of those who preceded it.